stay
by oceayen
Summary: What happens after one month and three days.


**A/N:** Short piece. I think this is fluff, maybe, idk? Lots of introspection, little action, though. Paid more attention to my writing this time, so there are more descriptions, etc. than my other stuff probably. At least like, in the first few paras, haha. It's not proofread very well; I'm too tired, tbh. Also this actually isn't an AU which is huge for me because AUs are my comfort zone.

Will and Nico hung on the very edge of a cliff; in a precarious, unstable balance (of weighted gazes when one thought that the other one wasn't looking, of secret glances and shared smiles and the fluttering of skeletal butterflies) that could crumble at the slightest breeze.

They were going nowhere. They were stuck in the limbo of walking on eggshells and stepping around each other and ignoring the elephant in the room. Will wasn't stupid, nor was he dense; it was there, painted green with orange polka dots, and he was tired of pretending not to pay any attention because frankly, it was an eyesore even in his peripheral vision and he wanted it _gone_. But it was like with every step he took forward, Nico took a step backward, and the boy was just so _ephemeral_ (like he was made of smoke and mirrors, of clouds and rainbows and the sun just before it sets) that he was afraid to make any more moves, for fear that one would drive him away permanently.

It was like a chess game—one that dragged on for miles and stretched the air between them into something as taut as a bowstring. Nico made his move that night.

"You should visit the Hades cabin."

The words echoed in Will's mind as he stood in front of the said cabin, six hours later. It was a little before dinner. Nico hadn't specified a time—only sent him that trademark small smileof his before going on his way, how typical—but he figured that he probably hadn't meant late night, because of the harpies and all, and it was more practical this way. They could walk to the pavilion together afterwards. He knocked after a split-second hesitation. Almost immediately, the door swung open and Nico was in the doorway, in a black shirt that was a little too large on him, looking like he had just showered. Adorable.

He smiled _that smile_ again. "Come in."

And while the son of Hades was certainly one of the most captivating sights ever, Will's attention was quickly stolen away by the surroundings. Gone were the hilariously bad interior decoration choices that Nico had bemoaned. While the place was still not as well-lit as Will would have liked (let's face it; the Apollo kids loved their lights), the place was a far cry from the emo nest that it had been. Most noticeable were the lack of the coffin-style beds (okay, those had been _really _funny) and the addition of various posters on the wall beside Nico's bed, which was a perfectly normal one with black sheets that looked so soft that Will wanted to face plant himself in it.

"Wow."

"You like it? I just finished redecorating. It took nearly a month for not much of a change, but," Nico shrugged, "I haven't had much free time."

"It's great!" he exclaimed, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, but it was worth it to see Nico's smile widen, and a pleased flush suffuse the paleness of his cheeks."No longer a vampire, huh?"

"Those beds were _tacky_."

Will ambled forward until he was standing over the bed, his shadow invisible against the darkness of its covering.

"And these beds are softer." The other demigod was beside him. "You want to see?"

With widened eyes, he turned towards his companion, who just stared at him blankly before crawling into the bed. Now he was sitting cross-legged, head tilted in a facsimile ofcluelessness, with just the right amount of expectation to make him believe that it wasn't an act, not really. "Like, on your bed?"

It wasn't like they hadn't sat in the same bed before. _Hello_—Nico had spent three days in the infirmary_(but _this_ wasn't the infirmary)_, and Will had done a lot of unprofessional sitting on the edge during his seldom found reprieves from healer duty. One time, he had even fallen asleep. He had been seated on a chair facing the bed, with his head nestled in his arms.

He had woken up to Nico staring at him with a strange expression on his face.

("Oh gods, why didn't you wake me up?"

"You looked like you needed some sleep."

"There are injured people out—"

"You say that I need to rest, but you ignore your own advice even when you're walking around half-dead and drooling."

"Oh gods, I was _drooling?_"

"That was a joke.")

"No, on the floor." Nico shot him a look that was clearly meant to convey: _Will, you are an idiot._

Will stuck out his tongue, before following Nico's lead and getting on the bed. There was a foot of space between them, but it could have been a centimeter for all Will's heart cared. It was like being in the midst of a delivery for the first time (all nervousness and fast heartbeats and deep breaths, difficult to keep calm but knowing you _had_ to; Will grimaced inwardly—he never wanted to deliver a baby again). He was sitting on Nico's bed. The thought sent the butterflies in his stomach into overdrive, although to be honest, he always thought that a situation like this would be in a different context."Mean."

Nico laughed, and Will felt like the sun itself was smiling at him.

"You're the first person I've shown, you know."

Then they talked for a while, filling the air with the sound of comfortable chatter, then comfortable silence. He usually couldn't stand the quiet, but around the son of Hades, it felt natural to sit beside each other in wordless contentment. It hadn't always been that way. He had been chatty at first, annoyingly so, as if his words could drive away the constant silence that had hovered above Nico's head when they first met. But now he understood that Nico was just like that, at least at first, and everything about him made Will feel safe and comfortable, ridiculous as the notion was because Nico was shadows and darkness and Will loved the light (but then Nico had this _light_ in his eyes, and it was brighter than anything Will had ever seen). And anyway, with each day that passed the walls the son of Hades cloistered himself in faded a little bit more, and he was opening up. Lately, there had been a stall—as he had stated beforehand, there was a constant tension between them in the room (a force, gravitational, and it pulled them together, but there was always resistance on either one of their parts, which, he guessed was what made it hurt so much). For now, it was gone, and they sat together in a familiar rhythm (of barely brushing arms and the sound of one another's breathing).

Will decided to enjoy it while he could. Gods know it wouldn't last. Moments like this had been rare lately, and he wanted it to last forever. But all things must end; especially good ones, and this was a lesson that demigods were very familiar with.

He missed the times when the space around and between them wasn't stagnant with things left unsaid. Nico's head was leaning on the wall and his eyes were closed, but as if he was able to hear Will's thoughts, his eyes opened. The blonde found himself staring into them and wanting to lose himself in the inky darkness, bottomless and dappled with the tiniest flecks of brown that he could pinpoint with startling accuracy, and then, _that light_. It was the subtlest shift in atmosphere, but suddenly, they were out of the comfort zone and plunged into cold and unfamiliar territory.

_Please don't run away._

"Is there something else that you wanted to say?" He could feel tendrils of hesitation twirl around his wrists and his ankles, like leaden shackles. If it was like this for him, he couldn't even imagine how it was for Nico. Nico, who closed himself off. Nico, who drove away anyone who came too close. Nico, whose walls were going down bit by bit. Nico, who was the strongest person that he knew.

His expression faltered, and Will caught a glimpse of the storm underneath.

"…Do you want to go?"

Beneath the words was an undercurrent, tremulous and barely kept in check; he knew that Nico was asking something more than the simple inquiry. Will's heart was beating so fast that he wondered if the other could hear it, and if he could, would it be enough of an answer? He felt like he was balanced on a tightrope, or like he was riding a roller coaster the moment right before the drop, or like he had to pick between a rock and a hard place—except he knew what he wanted, and it was just hard to say out loud, because what if this was only going to mess everything up?

He wasn't good with similes and metaphors, or figures of speech in general; at least, he didn't think so, which was ironic because he was a son of the god of poetry, but now he could think of a thousand comparisons—to how much he wanted to tell Nico that _no,_ he didn't want to go, and how he just wanted to pick him up and hug him forever, and then some—and none of them would be enough.

"Do you want me to go?"

And suddenly, Nico was right in front of him. (When did that happen?) He was barely short of straddling him, and he could count his eyelashes and the flecks of brown in his eyes, and they had never been this close before, but he could see that Nico was even more pretty up close.

_No, not pretty. He's kind of beautiful and you kind of want to kiss him._

"No."

It was quiet, but in such a way that Will could compare it to silk over steel—there was a framework firmer than Stygian iron underneath, an underlying sense of conviction, and hearing it brought onsuch a massive wave of _affection_ for this boy and it warmed him to his toes in a way that was both scary and exhilarating at the same time.

He couldn't quite think, he couldn't quite breath; this close proximity and how he couldn't do anything about it was killing him softly. He discovered soon enough that he didn't have to do anything. It wasn't his turn. But then again, this had long ceased being a game and morphed into something else along the way: something larger than life.

Then Nico's hands were on his shoulders. Will pretended that he couldn't feel the boy's fingers shaking, and he felt his chest squeeze—and then Nico's lips were on his, or maybe his were on Nico's; but it was too hard to determine things like that when your mind was reduced into nothing more than a ball of cotton and your body into jello. Will rested his grip on the other's hips, and Nico's fingers dug into his shoulders, but he couldn't find himself to care because it was sloppy and it was sweet and it was what he had wanted for such a long time.

(Is this… what _he_ wanted—too? Or would they go back to square one in the morning?)

But Nico tugged him back closer when they parted and buried his face in the crook of Will's neck; he was still shaking, and all the blonde's self-doubt disappeared, replaced by bone-deep happiness and the overwhelming sensation of wanting to reassure, to keep him close and warm and _there_.

So Will wrapped his arms around him. And he wanted to never let go.

"Then I'll stay."


End file.
